At the north end of the Common in Old Cambridge stands the famous
Washington Elm, which has been oftener visited, measured, sketched, and
written up for the press, than any other tree in America. It is of
goodly proportions, but, as far as girth of trunk and spread of branches
constitute the claim upon our respect, there are many nobler specimens
of the American elm in historic Middlesex.
[Illustration: THE WASHINGTON ELM. [From D. Lothrop & Company's Young
Folks' Life of Washington.]]
Extravagant claims have been made with regard to its age, but it is
extremely improbable that any tree of this species has ever rounded out
its third century. Under favorable conditions, the growth of the elm is
very rapid, a single century sometimes sufficing to develop a tree
larger than the Washington Elm.
When Governor Winthrop and Lieutenant-Governor Dudley, in 1630, rode
along the banks of the Charles in quest of a suitable site for the
capital of their colony, it is barely possible the great elm was in
being. It would be a pleasant conceit to link the thrifty growth of
the young sapling with the steady advancement of the new settlement,
enshrining it as a sort of guardian genius of the place, the living
witness of progress in Cambridge from the first feeble beginnings.
The life of the tree, however, probably does not date farther back than
the last quarter of the seventeenth century. In its early history there
was nothing to distinguish it from its peers of the greenwood. When the
surrounding forest fell beneath the axe of the woodman, the trees
conspicuous for size and beauty escaped the general destruction; among
these was the Washington Elm; but there is no evidence that it surpassed
its companions.
Tradition states that another large elm once stood on the northwest
corner of the Common, under which the Reverend George Whitefield, the
Wesleyan evangelist, preached in 1745. Others claim that it was the
Washington Elm under which the sermon was delivered. The two trees stood
near each other, and the hearers were doubtless scattered under each.
But the great elm was destined to look down upon scenes that stirred the
blood even more than the vivid eloquence of a Whitefield. Troublous
times had come, and the mutterings of discontent were voicing themselves
in more and more articulate phrase. The old tree must have been privy
to a great deal of treasonable talk--at first, whispered with many
misgivings, under the cover of darkness; later, in broad daylight,
fearlessly spoken aloud. The smoke of bonfires, in which blazed the
futile proclamations of the King, was wafted through its branches.
It saw the hasty burial, by night, of the Cambridge men who were slain
upon the nineteenth of April, 1775; it saw the straggling arrival of
the beaten, but not disheartened, survivors of Bunker Hill; it saw the
Common--granted to the town as a training-field--suddenly transformed
to a camp, under General Artemas Ward, commander-in-chief of the
Massachusetts troops.
The crowning glory in the life of the great elm was at hand. On the
twenty-first of June, Washington, without allowing himself time to take
leave of his family, set out on horseback from Philadelphia, arriving at
Cambridge on the second of July. Sprightly Dorothy Dudley in her Journal
describes the exercises of the third, with the florid eloquence of
youth.
"To-day, he (Washington) formally took command, under _one of the
grand old elms_ on the Common. It was a magnificent sight. The
majestic figure of the General, mounted upon his horse beneath the
wide-spreading branches of the patriarch tree; the multitude thronging
the plain around, and the houses filled with interested spectators of
the scene, while the air rung with shouts of enthusiastic welcome, as he
drew his sword, and thus declared himself Commander-in-chief of the
Continental army."
Dorothy does not specify under which elm Washington stood. It is safely
inferable from her language that our tree was one of several noble elms
which at this time were standing upon the Common.
Although no contemporaneous pen seems to have pointed out the exact tree
beyond all question, happily the day is not so far distant from us that
oral testimony is inadmissible. Of this there is enough to satisfy the
most captious critic.
Where the stone church is now situated, there was formerly an old
gambrel-roofed house, in which the Moore family lived during the
Revolution. The situation was very favorable for observation, commanding
the highroad from Watertown to Cambridge Common, and directly opposite
the great elm. From the windows of this house the spectators saw the
ceremony to good advantage, and one of them, styled, in 1848, the
"venerable Mrs. Moore," lived to point out the tree, and describe the
glories of the occasion, seventy-five years afterward. Fathers, who were
eyewitnesses standing beneath this tree, have told the story to their
sons, and those sons have not yet passed away. There is no possibility
that we are paying our vows at a counterfeit shrine.
Great events which mark epochs in history, bestow an imperishable
dignity even upon the meanest objects with which they are associated.
When Washington drew his sword beneath the branches, the great elm, thus
distinguished above its fellows, passed at once into history,
henceforward to be known as the Washington Elm.
"Under the brave old tree
Our fathers gathered in arms, and swore
They would follow the sign their banners bore,
And fight till the land was free."--_Holmes_.
The elm was often honored by the presence of Washington, who, it is
said, had a platform built among the branches, where, we may suppose,
he used to ponder over the plans of the campaign. The Continental army,
born within the shade of the old tree, overflowing the Common, converted
Cambridge into a fortified camp. Here, too, the flag of thirteen stripes
for the first time swung to the breeze.
These were the palmy days of the elm. When the tide of war set away
from New England, the Washington Elm fell into unmerited neglect. The
struggling patriots had no time for sentiment; and when the war came to
an end they were too busy in shaping the conduct of the government, and
in repairing their shattered fortunes, to pay much attention to trees.
It was not until the great actors in those days were rapidly passing
away, that their descendants turned with an affectionate regard to the
enduring monuments inseparably associated with the fathers. Among these,
the Washington Elm deservedly holds a high rank.
On the third of July, 1875, the citizens of Cambridge celebrated the one
hundredth anniversary of Washington's assuming the command of the army.
The old tree was the central figure of the occasion. The American flag
floated above the topmost branches, and a profusion of smaller flags
waved amid the foliage. Never tree received a more enthusiastic ovation.
It is enclosed by a circular iron fence erected by the Reverend Daniel
Austin. Outside the fence, but under the branches, stands a granite
tablet erected by the city of Cambridge, upon which is cut an
inscription written by Longfellow:--
UNDER THIS TREE
WASHINGTON
FIRST TOOK COMMAND
OF THE
AMERICAN ARMY,
JULY 3D, 1775.
In 1850, it still retained its graceful proportions; its great limbs
were intact, and it showed few traces of age. Within the past
twenty-five years, it has been gradually breaking up.
In 1844, its girth, three feet from the ground, where its circumference
is least, was twelve feet two and a half inches. In 1884, at the same
point, it measures fourteen feet one inch; a gain so slight that the
rings of annual growth must be difficult to trace--an evidence of waning
vital force. The grand subdivisions of the trunk are all sadly crippled;
unsightly bandages of zinc mask the progress of decay; the symptoms of
approaching dissolution are painfully evident, especially in the winter
season. In summer, the remaining vitality expends itself in a host of
branchlets which feather the limbs, and give rise to a false impression
of vigor.
Never has tree been cherished with greater care, but its days are
numbered. A few years more or less, and, like Penn's Treaty Elm and the
famous Charter Oak, it will be numbered with the things that were.